I made tacos today. It took pretty much the whole afternoon. I started prepping around noon, and I ate tacos at about 7:30pm. I am kinda proud of them, so if you would like to hear about my tacos then please enjoy this long post that I am just_posting.

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I bought a 2^1/3lb beef shoulder with the idea of turning it into tacos. I've never made shredded beef for tacos before, but I know my way around a taco. And beef, for that matter.

So anyway I chopped up some veggies and stuff first. I took out the beer that I had opened last night but didn't drink (I put it back in the fridge and had a hot chocolate instead) and took a sip. I needed yellow onion, but I only had giant shallots. Scaldogno is what they're called. I've never seen them before I moved here, but they taste like a mild yellow onion and a shallot hybrid. I decided they'll do since, well, they're all I had. So anyway I chopped up a couple of those, and some celery, and a pepper. I had never seen this pepper before I moved here either...it's like a bell pepper but it's shaped like an anaheim but has a dark red and dark green color. Weird, but tasty.

What I wanted: yellow (sweet) onion, celery, green bell pepper
What I had: scaldogno, celery, red/green ?? pepper

Then I took out my dutch oven and heated up some oil. I made a rub out of garlic powder, salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, chili powder, paprika, and oregano, and I coated the beef in that. Then I seared it on all sides in the dutch oven and it looked like this when I took it out. Beautiful.

So then I added my sofrito to the pot and sweated it out...then I added garlic and cooked it a minute, then some tomato paste and cooked it a bit more. Then I added a can of san marzano tomatoes and a bit of the beer that was in my hand and some beef stock.

I let that cook for a few hours, and in the meantime I made some pico de gallo and some guacamole. I don't have any more pictures of these things. :( Or any pictures of the finished tacos, either. But here's what they had in the end:

TL:DR shredded beef, cheese, cabbage, pico de gallo, guacamole, greek yogurt